"When they start attacking five at a time from all sides, you can no longer keep up with them."
Russian leader Vladimir Putin has spent years trying to capture the Ukrainian "belt of fortresses" in Donbas, which surrounds four major cities — Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, and Konstantynivka, but has failed. However, now U.S. President Donald Trump wants to hand over this territory to him as part of a peace agreement. The Times spoke with soldiers from the 63rd Mechanized Brigade, who are fighting against the Russians around the city of Lyman, about 30 km northeast of Kramatorsk.
"Soldiers who face death while defending territory that may be conceded at the peace negotiation table are deeply disappointed and demoralized," the publication writes.
Brigade commander Colonel Pavel Yurchuk said that desertion significantly reduces his ranks. "Our biggest problem is the unauthorized departure of soldiers from units, because often there is no one to replace them. Out of 100 people who leave our unit, only 1 or 2 percent have been killed. The rest are wounded who leave for treatment, or sick, and many of them have deserted," he said.
He notes that if he had more people, it would allow him to give soldiers a break, providing them with ten days on the front line and ten days of rest.
Moscow's Tactics
According to Yurchuk, Moscow's creeping advance is the result of a penetration tactic, where Russian soldiers advance one by one, in pairs, or in threes, trying to avoid contact with Ukrainian troops until they can secure themselves in a strip of forest or a basement. Most perish along the way, but those who survive receive supplies via drones and reinforcements in small groups until they can concentrate and attack in large numbers.
The colonel compared his work to the game Space Invaders, where he has to maneuver his few troops and drones to cope with the rapidly growing number of enemy soldiers:
"Their success lies solely in the endless flow of manpower. When it's the first, second, fourth, fifth level of difficulty, with one enemy per second, you can still catch them all. But when they start attacking five at a time from all sides, you can no longer keep up with them. Their advantage in manpower is not ten to one, but probably twenty to one."
"Right now, a soldier can be in combat deployment for 90 days, I can give him five to seven days of rest, and then I have to send him back. The soldier understands that after such a short rest, he won't be able to endure it again. Very often he runs away."
Sergeant Major "Lucky" from the 9th Company of the 63rd Brigade said that the Russians continue to advance on Lyman, trying to push his men back. If they manage to capture the city, they will be able to use it as a foothold to establish a bridgehead across the Donets River.
So far, the pace of advancement is slow. According to the brigade, over the past year, the Russians have advanced only two kilometers in their sector. The 63rd Brigade claims that in the two and a half years they have held their positions, they have killed and wounded about 17,000 Russian soldiers.
"The enemy has thrown a very large group of people here, simply destroying their own," Lucky said. "Perhaps we have conceded a few positions. But it cannot be considered a success that for every meter of land, so many infantry have to be sacrificed. They are paving their way with blood."
Ukrainian Territories in the Peace Plan
As FT reported, U.S. President Donald Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner gave Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a few days to respond to the proposed peace plan, which requires Ukraine to agree to territorial losses. According to sources from the publication, Trump wants to finalize the agreement "before Christmas."
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